The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method, a program, and a recording medium and, more particularly, to an information processing apparatus and method, a program, and a recording medium that are adapted to properly protect the copyright of content including music tones providing secondary copyrighted work and the copyright of the original copyrighted work of that content.
In related-art music distribution techniques, it is a main practice that audio data made up of a plurality of discretely recorded tracks is imparted with stereo effect (namely divided into two channels) by means of mix-down (or track-down) to be recorded to recording media such as CDs for sale. Normally, general listeners listen to music through media such as CDs, magnetic tapes, records, for example. These media are currently two-channel media, or stereo media. Therefore, a mix-down processing is executed in which the number of tracks, 4 to 48 or more, are edited to convert into two tracks (namely, two-channel stereo).
In contrast to the above-mentioned music distribution through recording media, a new music distribution method has been gaining popularity as music distribution business in which stereo digital audio data is encoded (or compressed), the compressed stereo digital audio data is stored in a server connected to the Internet, the music data desired by user is selected from the stored data to be downloaded from this server, and the downloaded data is decoded (or decompressed) for reproduction.
For example, in producing a piece of music composed of drums, base, piano, and vocal, the players of these musical instruments including a vocalist are assembled in a recording studio and a drum part played by the drummer, a base part played by the bassist, a piano part played by the pianist, and a vocal part performed by the vocalist are recorded by a digital audio recorder. The music producer reproduces the recorded four-part audio tracks from the digital audio recorder and mixes the reproduced audio signals into two-track tone data while controlling the level of each part. In related-art techniques, the tone data distributed through the Internet is also recorded to a CD (Compact Disk), an MD (Mini Dick), and so to be mixed down into stereo signals as with the tone data for sale.
Further, as the music distribution service based on digital audio data has been gaining popularity, users skilled in tone creation such as music composition and arrangement for example have come to make new demands that they not only listen to the music in a finished form after mix down, but also extracts a desired part from among a plurality of parts of music for listening, edit the extracted part, and add a new part for example that it is difficult with the uneditable tone data after mix down.
For example, in the above-mentioned tone data composed of drums, base, piano, and vocal, the pianist may demand that the piano part be extracted from the tone data for listening or editing. However, as described above, it is difficult to take the tone data consisting of piano data out of the mixed-down tone data.
Consequently, a method of independently managing tracks in tone data made up of a plurality of tracks, attaching copyright information to each track, and distribute the resultant tone data has been described in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-229281.
The above-mentioned proposed method allows the user to extract only desired parts (the piano part for example) from music for listening or editing and, on the basis of the copyright information about the part used by the user, properly execute the protection of the copyright of music including charging processing for example.
On the other hand, as with flea markets and affiliate services based on the Internet, chances are recently increasing in which users themselves do business by use of networks, selling content such as tone data created by users themselves through networks, for example.
Consequently, for example, demands are increasing for users skilled in music editing like club DJs to use the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-229281 to collect material audio data as a multiple-track audio data, mix down (or remix) the multiple-track audio data by themselves, and distribute the remixed tone data via the Web.
However, the distribution (or sale) of remixed music requires the permission by the copyright holder of the music concerned. For example, if a user adds a tone to the piano part of a particular piece of music, the piece of work (or music) thus edited becomes a secondary product of the original that is the piano part. In this case, the copyright holder of the secondary work is the user but, at the same time, the performer of that piano part also becomes the copyright holder of the edited work. Namely, the remixed work is of the user and the copyright holder of the original work equally has the right for the secondary work (or the remixed new work).
Related-art techniques presents a problem of the difficulty of properly managing the copyright of remixed music, secondary copyrighted work and, at the same time, a problem of the difficulty of properly protect the copyright of the original copyrighted work in the remixed music.